Irish Times reviewers cast a critical eye over the latest batch of paperbacks.
Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society
Daniel Barenboim and Edward W. Said, edited by Ara Guzelimian
Bloomsbury, £7.99
This series of conversations on music, culture and politics between the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim and the scholar and author Edward Said took place at a number of venues, some public and some private, between 1995 and 2000. They are remarkable not least for the fact that Barenboim is a Jew, born in Argentina and brought up in Israel, while Said was a Palestinian who grew up in America. The two men do not agree on everything, especially in the matter of Middle East politics, yet the friendship between them shines through every exchange. The themes discussed are broad, but a constant is the question of what constitutes home for these two sons of differing diasporas. This stimulating and humane book is a fitting memorial to Edward Said, who died last year.
John Banville
Wrestling with the Angel
Jean-Paul Kauffmann
Vintage, £7.99
The first time Kauffmann saw the Delacroix mural which gives its title to this book, in the Paris church of Saint-Sulpice, he was intrigued. He found Saint-Sulpice itself full of mysteries and he explores these, tracing references in diaries, journals, memoirs, literature, art history, architectural history and in his own life experiences. Delacroix's own journal provides much insight into the 12 years of his life that he devoted to the mural, and Kauffmann visits the many places in the French countryside the artist escaped to from his labours. Kauffmann's musings on life, death and Catholicism are fascinating all the more so when one remembers that he was held hostage in Lebanon for five years in the 1980s. What is the result of all Kauffmann's wrestling with Delacroix's mural? Read this captivating book to find out - but be prepared for a surprise.
Brian Maye
Us vs Them: Journeys to the World's Greatest Football Derbies
Giles Goodhead
Penguin Books, £6.99
In this entertaining book, Goodhead combines his interest in foreign culture with his obsession with the beautiful game. He fulfils the dreams of most football fans by travelling to Barcelona, Milan, Prague, Istanbul, London, Glasgow, Buenos Aires and Mexico City in order to witness the greatest football rivalries being battled out. However, rather than cater merely for the easy target audience of soccer fans with a straightforward account of the world's fiercest sporting derbies, Goodhead also delivers a piece of travel writing reminiscent of Bill Bryson. His wit, personality and wide-eyed fanaticism are unrelenting as he drags a different family member or friend to each destination, trying desperately and often comically to impart his passion for the game to them. Indeed, it is the journeys rather than the spectacles themselves which linger on in the memory.
Tom Cooney
Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal
Zachary Karabell
John Murray, £8.99
The Suez Canal truly was one of the marvels of the age when it opened in 1869. The waterway through Egypt joined the Red and Mediterranean seas, and shortened the trade route between India and the UK by nearly 10,000 kilometres. Despite the tremendous benefits to Britain, the country was dead set against the canal, which it saw as a sneaky French plot to gain hegemony in the Great Powers' rivalry for global domination. The man with the plan was Ferdinand de Lesseps, a disgraced French diplomat who spent some 15 years selling the idea, raising the funding and overseeing the back-breaking construction. This is an intriguing account of a stunning symbol of the Industrial Age that wrecked Egypt's economy and led, nearly a century later, to perhaps Britain's most humiliating political and military climbdown.
Kevin Sweeney
Irish Catholicism Since 1950: The Undoing of a Culture
Louise Fuller
Gill & Macmillan, 14.99
This history wears its learning lightly, but don't be fooled.The subtitle, The Undoing of a Culture, is the thrust of this serious and enthralling work. The main study is in two parts. Part One opens with the pragmatic response of the Irish Catholic Church to the Treaty and ends with the impact of the Second Vatican Council in Ireland. Part Two focuses on matters of religious life, constitutional change and the debates on Ecumenism which takes us to the late 1970s. Particularly helpful to non-scholars are the essays. The Prologue provides the 19th-century context of growth and ethos before the reader undertakes the book's serious concentration on the 1950s. The Epilogue robustly summarises the scandals and accounts for the current standing of the Church, which brings the work to a satisfactory conclusion.
Kate Bateman
On Blondes
Joanna Pitman.
Bloomsbury, £8.99
The title suggests a playful dissertation and points up an immediate problem for the reader: can something called On Blondes be serious and amusing at the same time? The answer, unfortunately, is no. Pitman falls between two stools. The style is too academic and the central thesis, which examines the Madonna/whore stereotypes attached to blondes down the centuries is too weak to sustain the book's length. She employs a chronological method connecting such diverse figures as Aphrodite, the Virgin Mary, Jean Harlow and Maggie Thatcher. We learn that the ancients were prepared to rub just about anything into their scalps (goat's fat, vinegar, pigeon droppings) to turn dull locks into gold. It's only when she gets to the 20th century and discusses the link between blonde hair and racial superiority that Pitman really hits her target.
Ken Walshe